The good intentions are not enough to reverse a somewhat conventional crime drama about adolescence and the mafia. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 27, 2021

Piranhas attends a moral pixelation in which, beneath Nicola's charisma and community spirit, many times we find nothing, simply a glitch, a hole filled with hunger. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 9, 2021

[An] effective thriller. [Full review in Spanish]

| Nov 18, 2020

Yet for all the confidence, charm and high cheekbones of Di Napoli, he's a slightly callow performer, and the innocence is drummed out of him... rather too quickly... and the film caves to the all-too-familiar rise-and-fall narrative of the gangster film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 20, 2020

It has the virtue of winding up in a no man's land, but there are too many commonalities to be surprised by anything except the age of the protagonists. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 15, 2020

Something sadder ticks away in the movie... the primal truth of spiralling violence, the timeless love of boys for guns.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 15, 2020

[Its issues feel] a small complaint for a crime film that's thankfully more interested in humans than mythmaking.

| Jan 18, 2020

[Claudio] Giovannesi narrates in a vibrant way the rise to power. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 11, 2019

Piranhas plays more like a teen drama in which organized crime is a backdrop. Director Claudio Giovannesi uses a fluid camera to track this mini-gang, holding us to their perspective.

| Sep 17, 2019

This is one of the best films, foreign or otherwise, I've had the opportunity of seeing this year...

| Original Score: 10/10 | Sep 17, 2019

The well-made "Piranhas" ("La paranza dei bambini") follows a roving band of out-of-control teenagers (some even younger) carrying out juvenile crimes in Naples, Italy, which is a city of extreme conditions, chaotic energy, and deep secrets.

| Sep 9, 2019

Eternal violence.

| Aug 26, 2019

Stylistic utility isn't enough to mask the essential emptiness at the heart of the story. When you strip away the novelty of it all, we're left with little more than a kids' meal version of Scarface.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 22, 2019

Despite Giovannesi's fine eye for detail and Di Napoli's impressive screen debut, Piranhas never quite reaches the heights of Gomorrah, Dogman, or Reality, to name three outstanding examples of the current wave of Naples crime pics.

| Aug 21, 2019

It's visually interesting, but stylistic utility isn't enough to mask the essential emptiness at the heart of the story...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 20, 2019

The scrappy filmmaking and petty criminal antics fit the scale of this Gomorrah Jr.

| Aug 12, 2019

It flashes potential on both sides of the camera, but this gritty Italian crime thriller is conventional beneath its mildly unsettling surface.

| Aug 9, 2019

Much of what transpires in [Claudio] Giovannesi's mob-mashup feels a trifle old hat, even its unblinking rawness.

| Aug 9, 2019

Piranhas may not be original, but it sure is gripping.

| Aug 9, 2019

This drama isn't as masterful as "Gomorrah" but the handheld camerawork and spare use of score suck us into the crimes, all the more chilling due to the age of their perpetrators.

| Aug 8, 2019